Mirrorfall
Mirrorfall - book one of Require: Cookie. TL;DR Plot Summary Angel recruits hacker into magic MiB. Extended Plot Summary Agent Ryan pursues a Solstice into a home, and after a minor standoff, a toddler is left dead. Ryan, already guilt-ridden from an unrelated death, begs Death herself to allow him to retrieve the child from Limbo. He travels through death's realm, and finds the small girl playing with Limbo - who herself has the appearance of a small child. He ignores Death's warnings that she may become a ghost, instead giving Stephanie her doll, and carrying her back to the world of the living). Twenty years later... Stef Mimosa is a hacker who lives alone, working small freelance jobs (usually password-related...whether or not the customer owns the account). She is hired by Dorian Gray to work on unspecified project, and after an NDA is signed, she travels with him to the mansion of Jonowoi "Jon" Gray. She works with other code monkeys to attempt to learn to the new coding language, and to make a glitching program work (to an unspecified end). After a couple of weeks at the mansion, whilst sleep-deprived and unable to use her own bed, Stef encounter a monster - Astrin. Astrin is from a dying world, and has travelled ("fallen to Earth") through one of the voids that opened up as the planet was slowly coming apart. It's known that once a world begins to die, unless a species has space-faring technology, that the entire population is doomed, so some choose to jump into voids, and take the tiny chance that they'll land on another world. This journey is not without cost - it can mutate mind, body, or both. In return, however, it grants "language and breath" - the ability to speak the most common language of the area you land in, and the ability to procces the atmosphere. In Astrin's case, it primarily mutated his body, though he does engage in some ruthless methods to keep himself alive (Dorian mentions that he had resorted to cannibalism before he and Jon took him in). Jon is another who has made this trip from a dying world - as Stef deduces as she sees his full name, "Jonowoi" in the code, and confronts Dorian about it. The code is Jon's - it's part of the mechanism from the escape pod his parents built to try and make the journey through the void more survivable. Jon's father was lost in the flight, and his mother died soon after - as they landed in the middle of the London Blitz. Jon was sent to the country with other evacuees, and was soon noticed by Dorian (recovering after severe injuries - even immortals take time to heal) as someone not at all familiar with the world. He adopted the boy soon after. Jon has merely allowed Astrin to write over some of the old data, in the hopes that they can capture his journey's trajectory, and hopefully predict where others of his planet may appear. One of Stef's fellow code monkeys calls in some "friends", whom Dorian does not have time to vet - to their detriment, as he soon notices that they're Solstice. Solstice are a group who attempt to destroy anything magical, seeing it as unnatural and abhorrent. Dorian soon leaves with Jon, and warns Astrin as well - as in his view, they are the only ones in danger, they are the only ones who aren't "normal". Stef stays, intent on finishing the code. She retreats into her room, where she works by herself, using her laptop "Frankie". Late into the night, she hears gunshots, and hides in the wardrobe, where she continues to work on the code, as she is close to making the code work. It is Ryan who is sent to the mansion, and he comes across the bodies of all of the code monkeys, and the remaining Solstice - whom he dispatches quickly. He moves through the mansion, shifting from life sign to life sign, until he comes across an empty bedroom. With limited places for a person to be, he opens the wardobe and finds Stef, who he believes to be Solstice. She quickly convices of him two things - that is isn't Solstice, and that she remembers him from their first encounter. He shifts her back to the Agency and she quickly goes over what she knows. He then offers her recruitment - a chance to work with the Agency, which she readily accepts. The next morning, she's taken for recruitment tests, which are administered by (in order): Agent Taylor of the Combat Divison, Agent Jones of the Technical Department and then Ryan himself. ((WIP)) Section heading Write the second section of your page here. Category:Books